


Operation: Las Vegas

by Drive-By Drabbles (DriveByDrabbles)



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Gen, crackfic, webseries spy au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 03:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13332702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DriveByDrabbles/pseuds/Drive-By%20Drabbles
Summary: Authour’s note: This particular bit of crackfic combines details from The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet and the Webseries Spy AU notion, courtesy of Clavisa on Tumblr. I wrote this a year or so after the series ended but forgot about it until a recent file excavation.Cross-posted: http://drivebydrabbles.tumblr.com/post/96519870621/spy-au-operation-las-vegas





	Operation: Las Vegas

_'“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, dear.” And those are eight words you never want to hear your mother say.'_  
— Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Ep. 76 “Wishing Something Universal”

* * *

February 4th, 1985, Outside Samarkand, Uzbek SSR, USSR

Operation Las Vegas was supposed to be easy money. It was supposed to get them the intel from a reliable double agent inside the Soviet nuclear regiment. Instead, the team’s two survivors were limping along the bed of a dry creek outside Samarkand, hauling the the corpse of a colonel who turned out to be a triple agent.

“This is a sad statement of commie discipline. Look at this fat bastard, I seriously doubt this is a regulation uniform,” Agent Philips grumbled.

“Shut it! Do you want their patrols to find us?” Agent Gardiner hissed. 

Phillips grumbled but piped down. It was a quiet three hour hike in the dark. Their path was lit solely by the full moon, one of the few things to have gone their way. At the designated point they climbed the banks to an emergency supply cache, which included their evacuation radio and a collapsible shovel. Agent Gardiner set up the satellite phone to arrange for a covert air taxi to extract while Agent Phillips dug a shallow grave to hide the colonel’s body. He paused with a the last shovelfuls of dirt, looking at the man’s ashen face, three dead eyes staring up. The third eye was courtesy of Agent Gardiner’s steady hand when their contact turned traitor on them; one shot, dead center.

They waited for dawn, sharing a canteen of water.

“I think I’m done,” Gardiner announced.

“You finished the water already?”

“No, I’m done with this life. The sneaking around, the shooting people.”

“Wait, are you serious?” said Phillips.

“Yeah. I’ve given my country my service. It’s time to live out life for myself. Maybe settle on the west coast — California’s always pretty nice, right? And far from Langley.”

Phillips laughed and shook his head. “I don’t believe it. You, settle down? And do what?”

“Something creative rather than destructive. Maybe cooking. My grandmother always said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

“Wait, you’re going to get married, too?!”

“Of course. Find a nice, boring, but solid man and settle in a small town. Get married. Take up knitting. Raise kids — maybe two or three. Buy a minivan. Join a country club.” Agent Gardiner smiled. “Yeah. I think I could do that. I can put on my southern accent. It’s always so disarming.”

Phillips found the whole thing hilarious and slapped his knee. “Sure you will, Marilyn.”

“Just you wait and see, Phil Phillips.”

* * *

March 29th, 2013, Longbourne, California

The day after she discovered that her middle daughter had been filming herself for a year and posting her family’s life on the Internet was certainly an eye-opening one for Marilyn Bennett. She was, rightly so, behind on internet culture and didn’t quite understand Lizzie’s fascination with this ‘YouTube’. 

“I filmed twice weekly videos of myself called vlogs — video logs — as part of my thesis to explore modern communications in an electronic medium,” Lizzie had said. It sounded entirely narcissistic.

No, that wasn’t not true. After spending most of the day watching videos (what, over 150 videos once her youngest’s videos were included?) she found a new understanding of her daughters that she didn’t quite have before. And in that sense, the vlogs performed exactly as promised.

“Well, what do you think?” Lizzie was at the door twisting her hands anxiously. She had peeked into the bedroom throughout the day but said nothing.

Marilyn cleared her throat and gently closed the laptop. “Well, that was certainly… how did your Mr. Darcy put it? Illuminatin’?”

Lizzie blushed and looked away with a mix of guilt and pleasure at having it be ‘her’ Mr. Darcy. “Mom, I’m sorry we never told you—“

“Never you mind, Lizzie. I understand.” She got up and approached the door.

“You mean… you’re not mad?” Lizzie looked genuinely confused.

She patted Lizzie’s cheek gently with a smile. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Lizzie, than are dreamt of in your videos.” With this, Lizzie’s expression went from flushed to shocked at such a literary reference. “We have a hungry household, so why don’t you be a dear and help peel those potatoes we’ve got? I’ll be down in a minute just as soon as I freshen up.” Marilyn beamed a smile.

“Uh, sure mom.” Lizzie wandered down shaking her head at just how well her mother was taking it.

The smile dropped just as soon as Lizzie was out of sight. Then with unseemly haste, Marilyn Bennet was in the bathroom with the door locked. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her ‘brother’s’ number in Sacramento. “Phil?” she said softly when it picked up. The bathroom’s squeaky ventilation fan provided ample white noise to keep from being overheard.

“Oh hey, Marilyn, what’s up?” 

“I need you to put out feelers. I need you to find someone for me,” she said, launching straight to the point. 

There as a pause on the other end. “No smalltalk and you’ve dropped the southern accent. Sounds serious.”

“His name is George Wickham. Late 20s. I’ll be sending you photos and a minimal dossier I’ll put together late tonight.”

“All right. And after I find him?”

“Then you invite me up for a solo visit and I take care of things. You remember Las Vegas?” Her voice hardened.

“Jesus, Marilyn, what’d this guy do?”

“Just find him.” Then she hung up.


End file.
